This one, tucked into a steep east-facing slope at the foot of an even steeper valley wall in Killahy, Co. Kilkenny, takes a different approach. It sits low and sheltered, with reasonable views northward, eastward, and southward along the valley floor, but none at all back up the slope to the west. Whether that positioning was a practical choice, a response to local topography, or something else entirely, it gives the site an unusually enclosed, almost secretive quality.

A rath is a type of early medieval enclosure, typically of farmstead scale, defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches and used as a defended homestead or agricultural enclosure. This example is roughly circular, measuring around 23 metres north to south and 18 metres east to west internally. Its defining bank is modest but legible: the interior height varies between 0.3 metres on the downslope side and 0.5 metres on the upslope side, while the exterior face rises to about a metre on the downslope side. The bank itself is about 2.5 metres wide and built from a combination of earth and boulders. A gap of 2 metres in the southern quadrant marks what was almost certainly the original entrance. The whole enclosure is now heavily overgrown with trees and scrub, which both obscures and, in its way, preserves the earthworks beneath.